Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution by Steve Jenkins

Jenkins, S. (2002). Life on earth: The story of evolution. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.

Summary: Using beautiful pictures, Jenkins presents evolution. He illustrates how life has evolved over the past 4.5 billion years from single-celled organisms to complex modern human beings. Captions next to attractive pictures of species starting with how many billion years ago show this change from simple to complex. Jenkins also discusses evidence of how species have changed over time through Darwin's theory of natural selection or survival of the fittest and explains variation and mutation. Lastly, a 24-hr timeline analogy shows the how truly old the earth is.

Review: Jenkins' artwork and layout make this book really eye-catching and easy to understand. The art showing the finches' various beaks explains adaptation well. The example with the frogs shows natural selection clearly. Also, the timeline will help students grasp how long billions of years really is.

Suggestions for Teachers: This picture book could be used with various grade levels. It could be used as an interactive read aloud for students for an evolution unit. Teachers could also photograph pictures and have students put them in order as part of an anticipatory set or after as an informal assessment. Art teachers may use the art as models for creating art with various mediums.

Reading Level:

1. Quantitative: Lexile 810L, ATOS Book Level 5.3, Flesh-Kincaid 4.9 Readability Grade Level 6.5, RMM 8.3
2. Qualitative: The text structure is slightly complex as connections between ideas are made clear through pictures and captions. The graphics and captions definitely are necessary for young students in accessing content and comprehension. Jenkins works hard to make the language conventions straightforward and easy to understand. Once again, content-specific vocabulary like natural selection, variation and mutation are understood with the dependence of graphics. As a first pass at evolution, the purpose is clear, but re-reading with young students would be necessary to help cement the theory of evolution. Knowledge of cells, organisms and species would be helpful to comprehension. If students, have strong beliefs in creationism, they may struggle with the ideas in this text but Jenkins addresses that argument with lots of evidence.

Content Areas: Science, Social Studies, Art

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.2
Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.3
Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.4
Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.5
Compare and contrast the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in two or more texts.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.6
Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.8
Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point(s).

Relevant links: Scholastic, Children's Literature, Teaching Books, 

Subjects/Themes: evolution, darwinism, natural selection, variation, mutation, beginning of the world

Awards: Horn Book, starred review

Series Information: N/A